


The numbers

by JustcallmeStar



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, I Ship It, Kara Danvers Has No Chill, Numbers in theory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, i apologize if this makes zero sense, weird metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustcallmeStar/pseuds/JustcallmeStar
Summary: Lena distracts her. A lot. She looks at Kara like maybe she can see the numbers and understand the burden, like she knows how it feels to be trapped under everyone's expectations.For Kara, it is freeing and terrifying.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 11
Kudos: 234





	The numbers

Kara is clumsy.

It's simply a fact of life, like how the Earth revolves around the sun and Noonan makes the best sticky buns in National City.

It helped her cover a lot, no one suspected the giggly blonde to have superpowers. When she first told Winn about her saving the plane, he had asked if she was clumsy on purpose. Deflection is the name of the game, and she had only said that considering the definition of the word, she couldn't do it on purpose. She could pretend to be clumsy, but that didn't mean she actually was.

The anxiety she had felt as she weaved the words to carefully avoid answering the question had made her want to move, to fidget and giggle. The only reason she hadn't given herself away was reasoning with herself that she hadn't lied, exactly, just omitted certain facts.

She didn't mention how she had to calculate every step and breath she took, how she thought in numbers first and thoughts later to avoid tearing down a building from simply walking to hard. She can't breath too hard in a room or everyone else will suffocate, thanks to fancy Kryptonian lungs and she can't flop down on her couch after a long day unless she wants to crash through the floor and talk to the down-stairs neighbors.

Which she really doesn't, everyone in the apartment building was aware of how often the engage in...physical activities. Especially the girl with super hearing.

So when something happens that throws a variable into her math, like someone walking into her, or playfully trying to bump her, even just down right pushing her, she has to react like it affected her. Has to move so no one notices she's a steel wall.

And everyone knows she's a bad actor, so trying to pretend she feels anything other than anxiety when someone unexpectedly touches her is difficult. Hugs are fine, when she aware they're going to happen ahead of time. She doesn't like it when people try to playfully punch her, because the numbers dart through her so fast she can barely process.

How much force or they putting into it? How much should she move? God forbid someone breaks a wrist trying to joke with her. Alex had punched her once as a joke when they were kids, when Kara didn't quite know how to control her powers.

She'd worn a cast for three weeks, and Kara had avoided all contact. She'd spent months holed up in her room, teaching herself the math she'd need in order to avoid situations like that. Earth's gravity was slightly different than Krypton, but as the youngest member of the science guild adapting to Earth science was easy-if a little boring.

So she calculates everything, how she walks, how she breathes, how she flies and punches. She teaches herself everything she needs to know to cause the least amount of damage, and the numbers that control her life slowly fade into the background.

They don't disappear, and they probably never will, but she slowly manages to get used to the suffocating equations that surround her both sleeping and awake.

She asked Clark about it, once. He had gotten that confused expression, one that he seemed to think looked cute but Kara just found out of place for a member of the House of El. El don't get confused, they get curious.

She had realized then that he would never really understand. He had grown up on Earth, with power humming through his veins constantly. He never had to think about it, because it had always been like that. It was as easy as breathing to him.

Kara was breathing with the force of a dead planet on her chest, and the air tasted wrong. 

But still, she adjust and adapts, because it's either that or chip away at herself until all that looks back is the darkness of the Phantom Zone and the voices of everyone lost along the way.

She continues when the numbers are all she knows, when the anxiety hits a crescendo of overwhelming breakdowns.

She's Kara Zor-El, and she will continue.

And then she meets Lena Luthor.

And Lena distracts her. A lot. She looks at Kara like maybe she can see the numbers and understand the burden, like she knows how it feels to be trapped under everyone's expectations.

The first time she meets Lena, standing at in the bright light of her office, she forgets the numbers. Her pencil turns into dust under her hand, and she frantically dumps her handful of pencil shavings into her pocket.

Lena makes her free in ways she thought she never could be, but also terrifies her in every way imaginable. She stops bringing pencils to their meeting's after breaking 47 in a three week period.

She blames Lena's jawline for that.

When Lena opens up to her, talks about her past and chooses vulnerability in return for strength, the guilt chokes Kara. It suffocates her because Lena is becoming the most important person in her life and she doesn't know Kara is an alien. 

She fights with Alex about it. A lot. Alex tells her it's too dangerous, too many things could go wrong. She knows it's because Alex cares, because Alex loves her, but she's already attached too close, fallen too hard for Lena.

Losing her would be the straw that breaks the camel's back, and Kara doesn't want to risk that.

She tells Lena a week later, when Alex gives in and starts printing NDA forms. Right before she leaves, racing off to Lena, Alex asks if she loves her. If she's worth whatever bad outcome could arise.

To her, Lena is worth every bad thing that has happened to Kara. She doesn't say that out loud, but the way her sisters eyes soften tell her that she already knows.

Lena doesn't take it well. She kicks her out of the office, and Kara can't hear Jess past the sounds of Lena's sobbing in the next room, can't see past the numbers swirling through every crevice of her mind.

She holds on the the last threads of her composure, and locks herself in a kryptonite training room. Once her powers are drained, she screams. She screams and she cries and she wonders what the hell she did wrong. What god did she piss off? She expects to feel better after letting her emotions out, curled up against the wall of the training room. She doesn't.

The only thing worse than losing Lena, she finds, is that even when she doesn't have powers, when nausea is creeping in from prolonged kryptonite exposure, the numbers are still there. 

She was so worried about losing Lena, she never considered losing herself in the process.

After that, she just goes through the motions. The numbers continue, Supergirl saves the day, Kara Danvers writes another article. She remembers how she used the wish she could just be numb, but it turns out that feeling angry and sad all the time beats feeling nothing any day of the week.

On day 82 of going through the motions, she feels something. 

She's lying in a crater of her own making, unable to convince her limbs to move. She can't see through her left eye, and everything is vaguely blurry through her right.

She still recognizes Lena, heels held in one hand as she makes her way barefoot into the crater.

Panic. 

Lena shouldn't be here, this is an active fight scene. She's going to get hurt, and Kara doesn't know if she'll be able to save her in time. Her throat hurts when she speaks, but she still manages to tell Lena to leave, that it isn't save right now. 

Issue: Lena is just as stubborn as her. She manages to drag Kara up to a half sitting position, and she cries at Kara's sounds of pain at every movement. 

Kara doesn't like seeing Lena cry, doesn't like that she's the one who keeps making her do it. She finds the last tendrils of her will power, manages to just barely get out alive. If not for herself, for Lena.

They talk after that. Lena talks to Kara about how mad she had been, how the rage had consumed her. Kara talks about how the emptiness had taken over, two different sides of the same coin.

It gets better after that. Kara feels more happiness than she can remember, more than she knows what to do with. Friendly conversation somehow morphs into flirtatious teasing, which quickly snowballs into long glances and lingering touches.

Nia tells them to get a room, and Alex gags frequently at their so called 'sex eyes'. 

Kara still has her moments. When the numbers are too much and she can't breath, Lena stays with her through it all.

And one day, Lena shows up with a Red light emitter. 

"I know the kryptonite makes you nauseous," she explains "but I figured this could help sometimes."

And when Kara Zor-El kisses Lena Luthor, the numbers are the farthest thing in her mind.

**Author's Note:**

> I am sorry if this makes zero sense, I saw a tumblr post somewhere about a comic or something where Kara basically had to do math like that all the time. I can't tell you what it's called or who posted about it, it was forever ago.


End file.
